Music and identity: A bibliographical research in Türkiye

Research to understand the place of music in human life and the meaning and function attributed is an academic endeavor that will yield useful findings in terms of many disciplines in social sciences. The aim of this research is to examine academic studies conducted on the relationship between music and identity in Türkiye in terms of different variables using the bibliographic analysis. A bibliographical analysis is about integrating related research, creating a bibliography that will enable easy access to resources, and guiding review for researchers in search for new topics. In this regard, this present research offers a unique perspective that will reveal a descriptive perspective to scientists and those who will conduct research on music and identity. In this research,which employs qualitative research method within the scope of document analysis, academic studies focusing on the relationship between music and identity in Türkiye were determined as the population, and a total of 61 theses, 46 articles, 16 books/book chapters and 8 procedia were included. The studies accessed in the search conducted using key words "music and identity" and "identity", "music", "identity and music" from databases on the internet and the National Thesis Center website were reviewed in terms of their titles and abstracts. The data of some parameters (target group and study groups, findings on the relationship between music and identity) were presented as tables on the Microsoft Word program, and some were presented as word clouds on the https://wordart.com/ website. When the findings are examined, it was found that the pioneer academic research started in 2000 at the doctoral dissertation level, and the period in which research on this subject was most intense was between 2020 and 2025. It was determined that academic studies were mostly published in the types of articles, master's theses, and doctoral theses. While the vast majority of academic publications were published in Turkish; ten studies were found in English and only one study was found in French. Regarding the model/method and data collection methods, researchers have included community experiences and practices and have utilized qualitative methods and field research more often. A total of sixty-one postgraduate theses were accessed on the YÖK National Thesis Center database; twenty-nine different universities were identified. The universities that published the most theses on this subject are Dokuz Eylül University and Istanbul Technical University. It was concluded that out of sixteen different departments/main art branches, the most theses were produced in Musical Sciences, Music and Sociology. Regarding ethnic communities, 'Alevi-Bektashi', a certain city or region, Romani/Gypsies, Armenians, Macedonian immigrants, Laz and Tatars are the most prominent communities, while it has been observed that music and identity studies have been conducted on a total of 26 different ethnic groups/communities. However, in fiftyfive studies, music-identity topics have been addressed without focusing on an ethnic community, including music genres, policies, literature review, content analysis, university students, secondary school students, young people and artists/music groups. The research mostly emphasizes the role of music in the identity construction process, in the preservation of cultural identity and its transmission to future generations and in "revealing originality".